Tell us about Maya. I like her relationship with her kids and her husband. She’s passionate about work, but she’s balancing. You don’t think she’s going to be able to handle the kids when they go away, but that instinct as a mom was still there, and that deep connection to her family. This movie has a gender flip, with Maya as the breadwinner for her family. There’s this assumption that if you’re female, you’re 100 percent going to soar more at motherhood than a male. Maybe we’re starting to understand those archetypes are not universal. What about your next role, in Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. [Sept. 2 in theaters and on Peacock]? I play Trinitie Childs, the first lady of a megachurch, and my husband is Sterling K. Brown, who plays pastor Lee-Curtis Childs. The church is trying to rebrand itself after we’re involved in a bit of a scandal. You’re also filming The Best Man: The Final Chapters [Dec. 22 on Peacock], a series sequel to the films. How was it to revisit that? The Best Man was my first film, so I started with all the original cast members. It was exciting for us to have one more time to visit those characters and see them not come to completion in two hours, but over a period of eight episodes. We were excited about “Where are we now?” In Me Time, you and Kevin Hart are husband and wife. But Kevin’s character has a deep friendship with Mark Wahlberg’s character. They did look kind of cute together, right? Very cute. It was neck and neck. We need a tiebreaker. Their bromance was pretty great, which was what I do love about [director] John Hamburg, because I love how he infuses bromance stories into his films. Are you good with kids? You’re not a mom in real life, but maybe you’re a great auntie or godmother. I think I’m a good auntie. Ask my nieces; they better say yes, but I think I’m pretty good. I think what really is helpful with children is time and patience. I certainly wish I lived in the same city with my nieces, but when you can get that quality time with them, try to really spend it well. You’ve had some amazing co-stars. Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy in Nine Perfect Strangers. Don Cheadle in Black Monday. Jada Pinkett Smith, Tiffany Haddish and Queen Latifah in Girls Trip. What do you learn when you’re working with very talented folks? Everyone is so unique in their way, in the way they work, the way they move into a character, the spontaneity, their use of space. I feel like I’m perpetually learning, and that, to me, is what makes what I get to do so interesting. I feel alive because I feel like there’s always room to grow. I’ve been really fortunate to work alongside these people. And, also, I’m inspired by watching them. You know what I mean? Sometimes it’s watching and being a part of something. Sometimes I forget I’m in a scene. I’m like, “Oh, wait, I have a line.” Because sometimes I’m so engaged in watching or just being present that I forget. But I feel really, really blessed to be able to work and learn. Do you think other actors, and audiences, can learn from you as well? Do you think there’s something that you teach? I hope so. I hope people don’t walk away going, “I got nothing.” I hope they do. Because I get so much back, so I hope I’m certainly offering something that people can carry with them as well. Some of your female co-stars, especially Nicole, Melissa and Queen Latifah, are creating projects for themselves. Are you inspired to do that? I have a production company already, it’s called Rh Negative, we started last year. We have projects in development and things that we’re doing and partnering on. It’s really exciting. Speaking of Nicole for a minute, in Nine Perfect Strangers, your character, Carmel, gets to choke Nicole. Was that hard for you to do? Of course! I’m a huge fan of Nicole Kidman’s work and I liked her. I’m like, “Nicole, I really don’t want to…” She’s “No, no, no honey—come on.” She’s such a consummate professional that she’s like, “You’re going to have to make this real.” I’m like, “I don’t want to make it real.” She was so great and easy and collaborative. That did make it, I don’t know if easy is the word, but that certainly made it a little more doable. Fun isn’t the word, but it was a good day, because it was one of those things where unfortunately Carmel had a little break from reality. And it was great because Masha [Kidman] was always so compassionate. But yeah, that was certainly not something I expected in my career. Limited series like Nine Perfect Strangers are such a big part of this golden age of streaming television. Rather than a two-hour movie, did you enjoy being able to really get into a series character? I enjoy it all. Whether you’re doing a character over the arc of eight or 10 or however many episodes, on cable, limited or in a film, it’s different. I find if I’m engaged in something, it’s great. It’s nice to be able to balance in and out and be able to do the different characters that limiteds allow you to do. And you get a nice amount of time to actually build it, and that is great as well. I love different ways to tell stories and the fact that you have so many different ways and so many different platforms for people to see them. In Honk for Jesus, how was it to work with Sterling K. Brown, who was so great in This Is Us? He is just funny, and smart and so incredible. We felt so happy when he came on board. He really embodies Lee-Curtis. It’s another example of working with people and continually learning. He was tremendous. It’s a comedy, it’s a dramedy. It’s got a few different things inside of the way that the story is told, and I’m really excited for people to see Sterling too. Jordan Peele is doing these funny/scary movies, Nope and Us. But I think Scary Movie was kind of the start of that, and that last one was in 2006. With this trend now, do you think it’s maybe time to revisit that? I already said we need a high school reunion. I want to know what [the characters are] doing now. I think it’s so wonderful that new generations are discovering Scary Movie now that people are looking at that genre again. For me, it was so exciting to work with Keenen [Ivory Wayans], who is so great at parody. I grew up with the actual movies that we parodied. You earned a master’s in journalism before you went into acting full-time. Did that help, or did you have to take crazy jobs to support yourself until acting paid the bills? I was a waitress for a while. I taught reading to kids in the summer. I was a professor in college in New Rochelle [New York] for a few years because it allowed me to audition. They had three- or four-hour classes where you would meet one day a week, so then I could audition but still get my syllabus and everything done. There’s a lot of work to being a professor, especially that first year or two when you have to create classwork and lesson plans. I tried to bartend. I went back to school to go to Columbia Bartending School, and that was good, except I think I was drunk. [In bartending classes] you’re supposed to spit it out in the bucket, but I don’t think I ever did. So I left class tipsy every time. I never could quite remember my drinks. And then I cocktail waitressed at this place called Lemon. So I did a lot of classic jobs that you do, minus being a professor, to pay your way and support yourself while you’re trying to act. With all that, you sound like somebody who’s up for a challenge. Which of your roles has been the one that challenged you most to date? They all challenge me in different ways. It would be hard to pick one. There’s just some that may be scarier than others. I hadn’t met Nicole [Kidman], so that was certainly intimidating. Originally when I said yes, I actually had not read the entire script. I didn’t have all the episodes. I only had the first three, so once I realized how much of Carmel’s part was with her, I was like, “Oh, my goodness, this will show if I suck or not.” You know what I mean? Other people have been working on a project so long, so you certainly want to make sure you’re showing up. I had worked with David Kelley before because of Ally McBeal. Also Honk for Jesus was certainly challenging, and Master was probably challenging the most, because my mom passed during that. That was a tough time. But I do love everything that I’ve gotten to do.
